travails of a fearful misadventure

On the morning of 3rd March '09, the 'chaddis' of the CKB2009 group were enjoying the beautiful morning weather with tea at the cottage in Munnar, Kerala.  The chaddis were on a trip to 'God's Own Country - Kerala' to celebrate the successful completion of their MBA programme.  I was busy as usual photographing 'Still Life' as my friends would call it, in different angles and by playing around with the settings in the camera.  Little did I know about the misadventure that I was going make in the later part of the day.

My enthusiastic fellow chaddis had made a plan to visit a water theme park on our way back to Cochin from Munnar.  I was fervently trying my best to avoid the plan by writing it off as a 'not the right option' to explore Kerala.  I was trying to convince them that having come to Kerala we should rather explore more of its natural beauty.  As expected, I fell in the minority and I had to give in to the pressure of visiting the water theme park - Veega Land.  Well, this is not the first time I was visiting a water theme park.  I'd done it before when I had gone on a Industrial Tour with my B.E college mates.  

I have my reasons for not liking a place which other people would love to visit or make it their home as the tagline of Mumbai's Water Kingdom/Essel World goes - "ghar nahi jaaoonga mein!".  The problem is that I feel I'm out of control when I'm taking a free-fall or going down a rapid slide.  I guess the problem started with my first air-travel.  It was a very small aircraft (a 2+2 seater) and I was on my way to Bangalore from Visakhapatnam to report for my Summer Internship.  The way the pilot was manoeuvering the plane left me jittering.  Since this experience, I've always felt a little concerned when it came to sitting in high speed vehicles or rides.  No no, don't get me wrong.  I don't mind riding vehicle at high speeds 'coz I know I'm the one in-charge and I can take control whenever required.  So thats the issue with me.

Come Veega Land and all my friends are excited about the various rides checking out the map to find out the locations of the rides and I'm sweating thinking about what would happen to me! :(  My friends were doing ride after ride and asking me in between to join-in but I would refuse!  Finally, I made-up some courage to go up the stairs and lie down on top of the slide.  Uplaksh deserves some credit for forcing me onto that slide.  Yes, I finally made it.  I grew in confidence.  Then I slowly started to resist the fear inside me and began to enjoy the rides one after the other.  I however chose to stay away from some death-defying rides like the 'Vertical Fall' etc. which scared me just by looking from outside the ride.  I must tell you, all my friends are really courageouos people! The girls especially.  Hats-off!  

I was really raring to hit the wave pool as that only involved lazing around in still water.  I forced a few of my mates to join in with me.  We hit the wave pool and I became  very active all of a sudden.  Here I was confident nothing big and dangerous could happen to me.  So I enjoyed myself in the wave pool till it was time to go!